Railroaders host open house to expand membership

A train rolls past a model of New Bern City Hall at the Carolina Coastal Railroaders open house Saturday.

Photo by Bill Hand/Sun Journal Staff

By Bill Hand, Sun Journal Staff

Published: Saturday, August 9, 2014 at 08:26 PM.

In a little building on Glenburnie Road, a town of 202 buildings populated with cows and people the size of your thumbnail thrives in the midst of a world of trains.

Around the tiny, bustling land of houses, businesses and factories, civic buildings and bucolic fields HO steam and diesel trains chug along 870 feet of track.

This is the world regularly visited by the men of the Coastal Carolina Railroaders at 2001 B Glenburnie Road. And they’re looking for a few good men — and women — to join their club and rule as gods of a lilliputian world.

The club of roughly 37 men meet regularly on Monday and Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings to work on their realistic layouts and watch as their trains roll along.

These are not your grandfather’s electric trains. Most are well advanced from the HO sets that raced around the Christmas trees of many of us growing up. Many of the engines of today’s collectors are of the computer age, holding chips that identify them and allow to be manipulated from hand-held controls that not only steer them along the course but also cue them with special effects: smoke for steam engines, for instance. The chugging sound of their engines. And the ding-ding-ding of their warning bells as they roll down the streets of a miniature town.

The model layout is almost daunting in its realism and attention to detail. Hours of labor have been put in to give even the rock face of cliffs and hills a lifelike texture and feel. One can almost feel the heat rising off tar roofs (modeled from glued and painted paper strips). People gather at a train station modeled after New Bern’s own, waiting for a train. Cars are frozen in time along the streets. One particular cow in a large herd dips her head to drink from a stream. In the city a police car is pulled up to the curb and a policeman frisks a suspect who’s “assumed the position.”

Still, according to railroader Bill Chaplik, “It’s never complete. That’s a hobby: you can work at it for years and there’s still things to do.”

In a little building on Glenburnie Road, a town of 202 buildings populated with cows and people the size of your thumbnail thrives in the midst of a world of trains.

Around the tiny, bustling land of houses, businesses and factories, civic buildings and bucolic fields HO steam and diesel trains chug along 870 feet of track.

This is the world regularly visited by the men of the Coastal Carolina Railroaders at 2001 B Glenburnie Road. And they’re looking for a few good men — and women — to join their club and rule as gods of a lilliputian world.

The club of roughly 37 men meet regularly on Monday and Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings to work on their realistic layouts and watch as their trains roll along.

These are not your grandfather’s electric trains. Most are well advanced from the HO sets that raced around the Christmas trees of many of us growing up. Many of the engines of today’s collectors are of the computer age, holding chips that identify them and allow to be manipulated from hand-held controls that not only steer them along the course but also cue them with special effects: smoke for steam engines, for instance. The chugging sound of their engines. And the ding-ding-ding of their warning bells as they roll down the streets of a miniature town.

The model layout is almost daunting in its realism and attention to detail. Hours of labor have been put in to give even the rock face of cliffs and hills a lifelike texture and feel. One can almost feel the heat rising off tar roofs (modeled from glued and painted paper strips). People gather at a train station modeled after New Bern’s own, waiting for a train. Cars are frozen in time along the streets. One particular cow in a large herd dips her head to drink from a stream. In the city a police car is pulled up to the curb and a policeman frisks a suspect who’s “assumed the position.”

Still, according to railroader Bill Chaplik, “It’s never complete. That’s a hobby: you can work at it for years and there’s still things to do.”

While the layout looks complete, the railroaders say they are always tinkering and improving their little town. While changes aren’t sudden, occasionally a house will be removed to make way for something newer and finer. Tracks are continually being fine-tuned and developed and there are thoughts, in the future, of adding an electric-light signaling system all along the track.

Chaplik is emphatic in pointing out that they are model enthusiasts, not just grown-old boys playing with toys.

He noted the difference of their trains are like the difference of a toy boat floating in a child’s bathtub and a detailed, exact model of “Old Ironsides” on a mantle.

The club held an open house Saturday morning and early afternoon hoping to stir up some interest and some new members. At least one person filled out an application.

Asked about the appeal of train modeling, Chaplik was almost homespun-philosophical.

“You look at a real train go by,” he said, “It either grabs you or it doesn’t.”

In other words, the romance of trains has to be in your blood.

The hobby of miniature railroading is broad in the kind of enthusiasts it draws, however.

“Like all good hobbies it can be expensive,” according to Joe Malone.

Can be. Some enthusiasts, he said, demand absolute realism in their cars and engines, right down to counting the rivets on the model. But others are happy with less exacting train sets.

As Chaplik described it, it’s all a part of the “good enough” theory of railroading: what ever makes you happy is good enough.

All the current members are men, and most of them are pushing their senior years — or are well into them. But they’d like to see new blood, young men or women “whose knees work,” as member Chuck Moody put it: working knees are a real benefit when you’ve got to be crouching under the diorama tables, playing with wiring.

For young adults, railroad modeling doesn’t draw as well as it once did, having to compete with video gaming. But, members point out, it’s a hobby that offers a lot of growth and an opportunity to learn, not just history and railroad culture, but many skills.

“It’s not sedentary like video games,” Moody said. “This hobby teaches you a lot of skills.”

Among those skills is wiring and the intricate art of building.

While members have general meeting times when several arrive and work, anyone in the group can come and run his trains on the track at any time.

“If you can’t sleep, just get up and come on down. You can be in here running your trains at 2 in the morning,” Chaplik said.

Membership is $35 for the first three months — a trial period for people to decide if railroading is for them. While most members have their own trains, of varying quality and capabilities, it isn’t required.

After three months the club votes on giving full membership, at which time it costs $25 a month. The money goes to improvement of the track, rent and upkeep of the facility.

Anyone interested in looking more closely into the club can contact the president, Joe Hoffman, at 638-8872.